Food Is Not Tech

Stop Comparing Meat Alternatives To Energy And Cars

I am happy to share my latest article for Forbes below. If you cannot access the site, you can always look for my articles to get posted to my own website about a week later. I will start sharing those links in this newsletter as well.

On my blog now you can read about how the nonprofit The Good Food Institute should return ill-gotten donations from Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX here, as well as how biotech meat may become the next Silicon Valley scandal here.

Here is my latest at Forbes:

One of the more common reactions to the recent spate of media stories declaring plant-based meat a fad is how we should not give up so soon because it’s still early days, and just like alternative energy and electric cars, things take time to shift.

The “alternative protein” industry’s PR arm, the Good Food Institute (GFI) loves to promote the comparison of meat to energy. This interview with GFI’s leader Bruce Friedrich illustrates the talking point well (note he uses the euphemism of “cultivated meat”, aka cell-cultivated or biotech meat):

“Just like renewable energy can replace fossil fuels, and just like electric vehicles can replace conventional vehicles, plant-based and cultivated meat can replace industrial meat – if they give consumers the entire meat experience at an equal or lower cost.”

There are several fallacies inherent in this line of reasoning. It’s important to dispense with the tired analogy so we can focus on viable solutions to the myriad problems caused by the over-production and consumption of conventional meat.

Read the rest at Forbes.